


My Boy Builds Coffins

by KellerProcess



Series: Fire Meet Gasoline [2]
Category: Mad Max Series (Movies), Mad Max: Fury Road
Genre: Age Difference, Gun Kink, Gun Violence, Imprisonment, M/M, Mild Gore, Obsession, Tags will be added, Warnings May Change, all the hits all the time, cw: Immortan Joe, homophobia cw, mass killing, sexism cw
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-06-12
Updated: 2015-07-11
Packaged: 2018-04-04 00:45:34
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 8,780
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4120332
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KellerProcess/pseuds/KellerProcess
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Immortan Joe reflects on the founding of the Citadel, the rise of his cult, and the only person he has ever truly cared for--the one person he may not be able to own.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

My Citadel is rarely ever quiet. Even at midnight, the garages snarl and snap with fire, my War Boys rave and fight and fuck until they fall from exhaustion or sickness. Or until they need to be replaced. The sickrooms hiss with death, and beneath my feet, the waterworks hum, the reservoir drip, drip, drips.

I left my wives early tonight, and I won’t return. I’m not in the mood for their charms. Not like this. So full of…recrimination. I have nine now, down one from this afternoon. Blessed simply could not give me the child she was supposed to. I am a patient man, but I have my limits—even soft yellow hair and big green eyes are not enough to prolong it indefinitely. They were hysterical, of course; wailing, pleading, grabbing at my arms, but I sent her from the Dome and left Miss Giddy to calm them down. 

Best to tear off the bandage all at once. Even when it covers soft skin.  
Usually, I would simply return a defective woman to the sands below. But Blessed has a strong back. Able fingers. She’ll make a fine Gunner Girl for the forges.

I’d never hear the end of it otherwise.

Furiosa answered my summons at once and agreed to take her to the Farm immediately. She’s a good girl, my imperator. Obedient. Attentive. A pity she’s always been too ugly to interest me. I watch her jeep set out across the sands, accompanied by her Aces on their war bikes. They’ll take care of any threat to this delivery; I expect nothing less.  
Still, I will watch the run. I’ve nothing else to do tonight—nothing I want to do more, anyway.

Like my Citadel, the Bullet Farm never rests. Even when its organic farmers trudge in from the fields, its forges burn on, their heat rippling to its spires and turrets. Of course, that is not where I direct my sights. The building I want to see is a simple, low-lying ranch house, no different from any other. And though the farm’s high walls block it from my sight, I don’t need to look upon it to know he is awake. His lookouts would have woken him at my signal, of course, but there is no need. He rarely sleeps. He either tinkers at his worktable well into the night, deigning or perfecting my engines of death, or he’s in bed, entwined with his favorite submachine guns, caressing them, licking them, fucking them.  
Even now, after everything, the thought of that long, bare body wrapped about destruction, draped in death makes me snarl like a V8.

“No,” I murmur. “Not now you don’t.” Not again.

Never again. 

It’s a difficult feeling to shake, nonetheless.

Tonight, the Farm reminds me of a great fire opal, shimmering beneath the stars. The true glory of my empire. 

It is, perhaps, the most extensive prison ever built. For the most contradictive prisoner ever to exist.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “So, Mr…?”
> 
> “Kalashnikov.”
> 
> “Kalashnikov…?”
> 
> “Just Kalashnikov.”
> 
> “Like the rifle?”

“Fuck me,” Deepdog said through a mouthful of jerky. “Looks like some sort of prison, don’t it?”

“Mhn,” I agreed as I lowered the binoculars. _Prison_ was a good word for the only building left standing on this street in Towoonda. Gray metal sides, barred windows, barbed wire fence, and signs shouting _Private Property_ and No Solicitors and _Beware of Dog_. “The question, though, is whether it’s keeping someone in or keeping someone out.”

“Yeah.” My strategist tore off another mouthful of the meat (speaking of dogs…). “You think it’s a ’burban arsenal?”

“Either that or it’s _something_ important we can use. I’m guessing guns, though. See how clean it all looks?” I pointed to the siding, which gleamed beneath the July sun under the thinnest layer of dirt.

“Mhn,” Deepdog agreed. “Chromatic. Could shave my face in the shine off those walls.”

“And eat dinner with the barbs on that wire. Someone’s home. And wants us to know it.”

“Like…you mean like those signs?” He waved an open hand at them. “‘Keep off the Grass’ and stuff?”

“More like fair warning. We’ll be flanking it.”

“Not the backyard?”

“No.” I shook my head. “Too much junk back there. Obvious traps. I’m guessing tripwires. Maybe land mines. Too much cover for a shooter, either way. And no one’ll be watching   
the rubble on the other side, or the busted-up cars on this one.” Such as the one we were positioned behind.

Deepdog swallowed. “Ah,” he said sagely.

God bless Deepdog Higgins, he was a damn good strategist, but every now and then I got reminded that he was still just a kid. Probably had only read about mines in school, if that. I gave the signal, and my men fell into place, arms at the ready. 

“On my signal,” I told the soldiers at my side. “One, t—”

A change in something—the shift of a body, a current in the air. They once said the body was the best electrical conductor, after all. Whatever the reason, my Instinct was the only thing that saved me. I pulled Deepdog out of the way a hairsbreadth from the straffing that blasted through the chassis and rocked a line through the three men who had been right next to me, making their bodies jig before they dropped in pools of their own blood and shit. The yells on the other side of the house told me the men there were faring about the same, even though some were valiantly returning shot for shot, just as the survivors on my side were. Our bullets put some dents in the siding, but not by much.

“Hold your fire! Hold your fucking fire! That’s an order!” I yelled as I shoved Deepdog behind a rusty carcass of a refrigerator. 

The hell was it all coming from?

A flash of red on the roof answered my question—a bandana around a mop of brown hair. It vanished behind an air-conditioning duct right as the spray stopped.

Reloading. Or changing weapons.

“Stop shooting, dammit,” I shouted at my men. “You too,” yelled to the sharpshooter on the roof. “We’re not trying to hurt you!”

“Go fuck your father, fuku-bastard,” Red Bandanna shrieked.

_Boom!_

The mangle of a tree next to us split as it ignited. 

“Jesus _Christ_ ,” Deepdog yelled from behind the fridge. “Where the fuck did he get a missile launcher?” 

“No surrender! No compromise!”

_Boomclang! Splssh._

More damage to the car that had been our shield—and the bodies behind it.

“Not a missile launcher, numbnuts. Bazooka by the sound of it,” I told him.

“Remember the Mereenie!”

_Tinktinktinktinkclangboom! BOOM!_

Okay. Now the bastard—or bastards—was just showing off.

“Not you,” I shouted out when the firing finally stopped. “Us! _We_ surrender. And I want to discuss terms.”

“Moore, what the hell?” Deepdog hissed as I yanked the dirty white bandana away from my mouth and held it up. “You wanna get that arm blown off?”

“You see this, right?” I called out, ignoring my strategist as I jiggled the cloth. “You know what it means? I’m not only surrendering, but I’ll be unarmed. I want to talk to you about who we are and why we’re here. Can you come to the front door, please?”

A pause. Then, “Stand up where I can see you. Take them all off too. I’ll know if you haven’t.”

“Colonel,” Deepdog hissed again.

I waved him off and set about stripping off my weapons. Only when I’d removed everything down to the knife in my boot, I stood slowly, hands raised, bandanna clasped in my fingers.

“Walk toward the front of the house. Slowly. Any funny shit and we drop you. Understand?”

“Understood.” 

Silence then. Not even the sound of bootsteps on metal. Our sniper might as well have been a ghost.

I walked up the sidewalk, slower than the heartbeat rabbiting behind my eardrums. We had no idea how many we were up against, one or twenty-one, or whether they’d keep their word. 

My men probably thought I’d gone crazy. But soldiers’ instinct told me to press on. And instinct has never, then or now, led me wrong.

I reached the porch without incident, and as soon as my boots hit the concrete steps, the door swung open and Red Bandana stepped out into the summer light.

 _Holy hell on wheels_ , I remember thinking.

Our shooter was nearly as tall as me, but about half the girth. Lithe and long as a gymnast and clad head to toe in faded but clean fatigues.

I think knew something was fucked about him. Right from the start. If not because of that shiny house, then because of that look in his eyes. Steely, hawk-fierce, uncompromising behind that beak of a nose, those bony cheeks. Young—younger than I thought. No way he was more than twenty-eight. His eyes stripped me apart, put me back together again as if I was a pistol being serviced.

Even though I’d just taken a drink a few minutes ago, my throat was suddenly dry. I swallowed.

“Fuk-ushima, mister,” he snapped. “Come in and discuss terms or stay out and go away. I’ve got better things to do than stare at your fat arse all day.”

A blink, and the world sped back up again. “Right.”

“Arms out, legs wide.” Huh? “You’re not taking one step closer without a patdown.”

Oh.

I did as he instructed. His fingers were long and thin as the rest of him. Machinist’s hands. Clever, active hands. They swept me up and down with more force than necessary, not even leaving my junk alone.

I coughed. Shifted my weight. “You want to get a room somewhere or…?”

“Had to be sure,” he said, straightening up. “Come inside, then. But remember—no monkey business. My men are watching y—”

“Bullshit they are, sonny. You’re here by yourself, ain’t ya?”

It was a gambit—like I said, I didn’t know one way or the other if he had ghosts on this property or not. But the way his lips twitched was all the tell I needed.

“Uh-huh.” I walked past him into the foyer. “Maybe you can tell me how you managed to straf both your flanks at the same time while we discuss terms.”

For a moment, I thought the kid was either going to pout or spit at me. Instead he just snorted and shrugged. “I’m a good with my AKs,” he said. “And ambidextrous. Let’s sit down and have a chat, then. World’s over, but we can at least pretend we’re still civilized.” Not waiting for me to answer, he turned and stepped through the arch that led to a threadbare, but tidy living room beyond.

I followed him and sat in the lumpy easy chair while he perched on the loveseat across. A Lahti L-35 sat on the scratched and otherwise empty coffee table between us. He picked it up and started disassembling it as if I wasn’t even there. 

“So, Mr…?” I said when he didn’t take the initiative to talk.

“Kalashnikov.”

“Kalashnikov…?”

“Just Kalashnikov.”

“Like the rifle?”

Glancing up from his business, he fixed me with a neutral stare.

“Seriously, now,” I tried again.

A hitch of a shoulder. “It’s what I answer to. If you don’t like it, you don’t have to use it and we don’t have to continue this conversation. Interesting how that works, no?”  
I raised my hands to cool him down. “I wasn’t protesting. Just a little confused.”

“That’s unsurprising. You seem to be confused about a lot of things.” He fixed me with that stare again. “Namely who owns this house and who has the rights to its armaments.”

As much as I hated to, an apology was in order. “I’m sorry about our presumption. If we’d known your house was occupied, we wouldn’t have tried to enter.”

“Funny. You could’ve fooled me when you started shooting back.”

“We were—” I bit back a sigh. This was getting us fucking nowhere. “Could we start again, maybe?”

“I’d think that rather depends on you, doesn’t it?”

I shifted forward in the chair and offered him my hand. “Colonel Joe Moore. Eighteenth Brigade.”

Those steel eyes cut me a guarded look before he put the pistol aside, reached out, and shook it. “Major Kalashnikov. Special Forces.”

“Rea—? I’m not trying to be rude, Major,” I said when those eyes got hard again, “but you’re twenty-seven if I’m being liberal.”

“Twenty-five last June, made major just before the last of the government finally came crashing down. Not that it’s any of your fuku-damn business. Yes, I shot up the ranks faster than usual. Some people are born to be poets, or engineers, or carpenters, or politicians. I was born to fight. Just like the rest of my family.” He pointed an elbow at the fireplace, on which stood a picture of an older, graying man surrounded by six younger, all in dress uniforms. “My dad and my brothers. All career military, most of ’em survivalists. All collected weapons like a librarian amasses books; me most of all.”

“No mother?”

“Would you have stuck around in a household with that much testosterone and piss?”

Prickly little shit, wasn’t he? “That’s seven men total. Yet you’re here by yourself.”

Another shrug. “Dad and Donny died in the Oil Wars. The Water Wars took the rest—except for Eric. He’s MIA. Presumed dead.”

“And you?”

“Heh. I ran a bit faster and shot a bit better. That’s all. Plus, they were all Forces Command. Preschool is fun, but eventually we should all grow beyond it.”

“Does humility also run in your family, or are you just the glowing exception to the rule?”

That got me a chuckle, despite the murderous glare. “I think I like you, Colonel. Not many people put up with my shit.” 

“Have I passed muster, then?”

“Eh, why not? After a while, even I get lonely with no one to talk to but the walls and the artillery.” Kalashnikov straightened up on the sofa and draped his long arms across his thighs. “So what’s your story? Why were you trying to shoot down my door?”

I could have given him The Speech. The call to arms I gave anyone that had a skill to offer my not-so-Merry Men. The same thing I give to my War Boys now: all about family and safety and building up a new world.

But I knew those steel eyes would see right through me. So I told him the truth.

“It’s about survival, Kalashnikov. I survived the Oil Wars and the Water Wars. And I want to keep doing it. And the more of us that band together, the stronger we are, and the better our chances. Only the strong survive.”

“Mh, Social Darwinism at its finest—I’m young, Colonel, not dumb and full of come. And I know what a marauder looks like even if he doesn’t take a shot at me. Why should I join your endeavor, exactly? What’s in it for me but letting your men put your hands all over my lov—my weapons and running amok?”

“That’s simple. You’d probably blow off their heads if they tried. And I’d let you. I’m not a bandit, kid, and neither are my men. We’re all ex-military; we like order, and we could use a sharpshooter like you.”

“Huh.” Kalashnikov nodded once, and sucked his upper lip behind an incisor. I expected a fight. More bullshine, anyway. “Hell,” he said instead, “can’t say as rotting here in the family armory’s how I want to spend the rest of my days. All right. On two conditions.”

“Go on.”

“I’m your armorer and your gunsmith—your _only_ armorer and gunsmith. If it can be loaded and fired and goes ‘boom,’ I say who gets to touch it, when, and why.”  
“Better than the system we have now. And the next?”

He shot me a smirk. “Unless you want to breathe through a new hole, you never call me kid again.”

“I think that can be arranged.”

“Okay, then.” The ki—Kalashnikov hopped to his feet and stretched his arms over his head. _Wiry little thing._ “You got a truck for any of this? Because, as you can guess, we’re going to need one.”

“Nothing that big, no.”

“Well, thank God I’ve got one out back. Under the tarps and the wood. Man, you fuku-bastards really do need me more than I need you. Let me just go get my keys and you can check it out.”

“One more thing.”

Kalashnikov stopped walking and turned around. “Yeah?”

“All of this—Fukushima—”

“ _Fuk_ -ushima.”

“ _Fuku_ -shima. Fuku-this, fuku-that. What the hell?”

The major snorted and rolled his eyes. “Christ, you’re old. Think awhile. It’ll come to you.”

It’s funny. Forty years later, and even though I gave the word to my War Boys, still can’t say that it has. 

Something else was clear that day, though. As Kalashnikov headed out of the room I knew I had to have him. That he was mine, and always would be.

Unfortunately for him, he no longer agrees.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One thing I've been wanting to mention for a while now is the spelling of Kalashnikov's name. The prequel comic spells it Kal _i_ shnikov. However, the similarity between it and the name of the Kal _a_ shnikov rifle (named for Mikhail Kalashnikov, designer of the AK-47 ) seems to coincidental to ignore. Thus, spelling it with an I instead of an A doesn't really make sense to me. Is Kalishnikov a typo? An alteration made for some other reason?I'd be interested to hear the opinions of any Russian-speaking readers about this question of spelling. 
> 
> Regarding the comic as well: "Fukushima," the "expletive" the Bullet Farmer seems to enjoy shouting, is at one point spelled with a hyphen after the K. I thought it was this way throughout, but a close reread proved me wrong. Rather than go back and correct it, I've left it as is. Whether the hyphen indicates a slightly different pronunciation of the word or an emphasis on the first syllable (perhaps to make it sound more like "fuck"?) I leave up to you to decide. Just as I leave up to you to determine whether the difference between the way Kalashnikov and Joe pronounce the word really means that Joe's not up-to-date on all the cool post-apocalyptic slang out there ;).
> 
> Wow. That wasn't nerdy at all. Any of it.


	3. Chapter 3

My Furiosa’s jeep is halfway to the Farm now. It is the size of a toy; the accompanying motorcycles even smaller. Miniatures. Freeze them, and they could be a diorama.  
I shift the telescope away from the party and back toward the Bullet Farm. Even at this hour, the factory towers spin out smoke like toxic candy floss, the farmers inside crafting destruction. Growing death for me.

I wonder if he is on duty there tonight, those long fingers packing crates, casting bullets, calibrating; or is he guarding the perimeter with his soldiers? Sitting up in his workshop tinkering with the latest gun I have ordered him to design? Preparing to place my next three candidates for imperatorship through training that would probably qualify as torture? The most egalitarian of our triumvirate, he certainly won’t be sitting idly by when he can be working alongside his miners, his soldiers, his farmers to tighten the bolts and oil the machinery of his kingdom.

What would he do, I wonder, if I were to interrupt him? Would he order me to leave? Push me aside, telling me there are more important things to do tonight than me?  
Would he lie back and enjoy the attentions I want to visit upon those long limbs and that sour mouth? On that body, still slim and powerful even in age? Perhaps even stronger for it.

My viscera tenses. It hasn’t moved all evening, but now, the thoughts make my cock stir beneath its casing.

My Kalashnikov is a difficult creature, as complicated as the machinery of death he builds for me, as cold and heavy as the lead that sleeps in the beneath his boots. When I think I have him figured out, all his layers worn down and barred like the earth he’s hollowed away for me, the seam I was following ends. He shutters his eyes and retreats to further depths. Such a complicated man.

I have spent forty years attempting to strip him to his core.

***  
As we get ready to head out of Toowoomba, Kalashnikov insists on driving our new supply truck—and insists that I sit in the cab with him. “Not sure I trust you yet,” he says when I object. “And I definitely don’t trust your mates. Either I get some collateral or the deal’s off.”

“You don’t talk to the colonel that way,” Deepdog snaps with a glare.

“Bite me, Tinky-Winky,” Kalashnikov retorts.

“I’m inclined to agree,” I tell the little punk. But I’m curious. What kind of elite officer mouths off to a superior like this? Has he just stopped giving a fuck for rank and order now the world’s ended? No, it’s got to be something else.

“If you’re going to be part of this outfit, you show some respect to a superior officer,” I tell him. “Do that, and I’ll ride with you as far as tomorrow.”

“But sir—” Deepdog looks like he wants to harpoon the bastard. I share the feeling, even though I cut him off by holding up my hand.

“My truck, my guns, my rules _Colonel_. I say when you get back on your bike. And move your hand any closer to your pistol, Tinkles, and I’ll blow it off for you.”  
Wonderful. Not an hour after meeting and my strategist and our new armorer hate each other.

“Fine,” I tell Kalashnikov. “Your truck, your guns, but my orders. Don’t make me talk to you about respect again.” I chuck the keys to my bike to Deepdog. “Let Henley ride it.  
Maybe he’ll stop bitching for five seconds about there not being enough bikes.”

“Sir,” Deepdog says. He shoots Kalashnikov another glare before stomping off.

“So is everyone in your outfit a pissbaby or is Tinky-Wink just an exceptional individual?” Kalashnikov asks as he hops up into the driver’s seat.

“No, he’s just pissed off because I hired some primadonna our new armorer. Can’t say as I understand that decision, either,” I say as I join him on the other side and close the door. “Stop antagonizing my men, Kalashnikov. We’re in enough shit without bitchfighting in the ranks.”

He just shrugs as he starts up the engine.

“Why are you such a little asshole, anyway?” 

“Good breeding.”

“Yeah, you probably made your daddy real proud.”

“Listen, _sir_ , I don’t like wasting words. So I’d really appreciate it if we could do this drive without talking.”

“Fine by me,” I tell him as I put my feet up on the dash. It’s going to be a long ride; might as well get comfy, especially if I have to put up with this kind of company.

I don’t even get a grunt for an answer. And except for a sentence here and there—“Pull over here;” “We’re stopping to refuel now,” all usually from me—that’s all I get for the next two days.

“I’m gonna start hallucinating if this silence keeps up much longer,” I tell him as I climb back up into the cabin on the morning of the third. The seat’s still warm from where I slept in it last night, and Kalashnikov is still slumped against the wheel, looking groggy and pissy as ever. “Rise and shine, princess,” I chirp as I chuck his rations at his head.

He catches them with one of his usual sour looks. “It’s too damn early for your shit, Moore. And what the hell is that?”

“What?” I ask as I swing Freyja up onto my lap. “They don’t have guitars in the Special Forces?”

His lip curls into that jaded little sneer I am getting so damn tired of seeing. “ _What’s it doing in here?_ ” 

“Well, seeing as you won’t talk to me—”

“Not my job to entertain you.”

“Didn’t say it was, Major. But sane human beings don’t like to marinate in their own thoughts for days on end. But since I’m being forced to travel with a crazy man, I figure you won’t mind if I play a bit to pass the time.”

The glare he gives me as he bites into his jerky is worth the last forty-eight hours of aggravation.

And unfortunately for him, things are only going to get worse.

As I tune Freyja, I glance at the dashboard clock. I give him twenty minutes to crack. 

He gives me exactly twenty-two.

Special Forces material, indeed.

“All right! All right!” Kalashnikov shouts, slamming a bony fist against the wheel. “I’ll talk to you. Just stop murdering ‘Monday Morning.’”

Mission accomplished. “But I thought you didn’t like talking, Kalashnikov?” I say sweetly as I pick out the opening chords to “Go Your Own Way.”  
He slaps those long fingers against the strings, which…actually sounds better than what I was doing, if I’m honest. “I like it more than listening to you rape that thing. Fuk-ushima! Whoever the hell _taught_ you, I hope you got your money back.”

“Actually learned it in uni. Right before I joined up.” I can tell he’s not interested, but that doesn’t stop me. “Some friends and I, we had a garage band.”

He snorts before opening his canteen. “Well, didn’t you pick the wrong career.”

He’s right, of course. I give him that. “Mostly just for fun, but we’d joke about hitting the big time. Nate—the guitarist—said I should learn more than vocals; all the greats could play first guitar too, he said. A few weeks of lessons later, he told me if I forgot he said that, he’d pay me fifty dollars.”

“Well, then I’m glad _he_ got his money’s worth.” 

I smirk at the little shit, prompting him to take a social cue. Finally, Kalashnikov huffs a sigh, like he’s doing me a favor. “Fine. What was your shit band called?” 

“Highway to Walhalla.”

I let him laugh until he starts pounding the steering wheel and the horn starts blaring. Little prick is doing that just to spite me.

“If you wake up the whole camp, I’m going to let ‘Tinky-Winky’ shoot you,” I inform him.

He calms himself. Looks up at me. Starts laughing and pounding again.

_Or maybe I’ll just put you over my knee and give you a good, hard spanking. In front of everyone. Bare-arsed. That’d shut your trap, wouldn’t it, brat?_

Too much shit from him too early is fucking with my plan. And my brain.

“Oh hell,” Kalashnikov drawls. “You did V-viking-themed rock, didn’t you?”

“Yeah, and I can share some of it if you don’t feel like playing nice.”

I only get about five chords into “Hall of the Allfather” before he slaps my guitar strings again.

“Fine, fine. Just promise me you’ll never play that damn thing again.”

I put Freyja up—for now—and stretch my arms over my head in a nice, back-cracking yawn. We’ve got a good hour before we’ve even got to think about breaking camp. Plenty of time. 

“So, this talking…thing,” Kalashnikov says on a frown. “What is it with people and talking?

I shake my head. “You’re a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma. Must be a real hit at parties.”

That gets a snort. “I’m just boring as mud, Moore. What you see is what you get with me. That’s all.”

“Guns, guns, and more guns?”

“Yup.” He pops the _P_ , sour as salt. “When you grow up with a survivalist dad that gives any and all gun laws the middle finger, that’s pretty much what you do. I’ve been firing them since I was seven—six if you count the training wheels.”

“Training wheels.”

He shrugs. “Dad putting my hands in the right places. Holding it so the recoil wouldn’t get me.”

About as far away as you can get from my childhood. I don’t think my mum would have allowed even the thought of a gun into our respectable Canberra suburb, and Dad would’ve agreed.

It’s then I notice that his expression’s considerably softer. Huh. Interesting.

“It was…” He pauses here, as if trying to decide if he’d like to keep talking or tell me to go fuck myself. “Some people always just know what they want to do in life,” he goes on after a moment with a shrug. “They say they want to be artists or chefs, or maybe even prime minister.” This gets a snort; can’t say I disagree. “First time my dad showed me his arsenal, that was it for me.” A dry chuckle. “Big surprise, that. Pretty sure we can trace our military heritage back to the Second Boer War.”

That gets a raised eyebrow from me. “What?” he says. “You think I’m taking the piss? It’s true! Big families, at least one brother in the service. Usually more. Fighting’s in our blood. Heh. _Blood’s_ in our blood.”

“And guns?” I prompt before he can fall into that usual glaring silence again.

This gets me a small smile. “Kind of goes with the territory, wouldn’t you say? The first time I touched one, it was…” 

He shrugs. I wait for him. Give him a smile right back. For a second, I think he’s going to say something like _sexy_. 

Hmm.

“Honest,” he says instead. “Up until then, everything felt fake. Unbelievable. The stories they read me. All their pat explanations for everything. All the shows they put me in front of that said the world was a good, happy place. _Bullshit_ , all of it.”

I nod. I wonder if I’m still here as far as he’s concerned. Probably not. Kid’s been locked up by himself for who knows how long with only his walls and guns to monologue at.  
He’s probably crazier than the rest of us by now.

“You see,” he says, voice coming down from that crescendo, “you know where you stand with a gun. Always. Shot or not shot. Yes or no. Not dead or dead—or soon to be. And yet, they’re deceptively simple devices. People are so fucking stupid,” he scoffs. “They think you just load them and fire. But there’s so much more to it.”  
I wanted an icebreaker. Something to keep me from falling asleep or losing my damn mind as we drive through miles of endless fucking sand; something to convince me the driver wasn’t a robot—or could pass the Turing Test at least. Instead, I get a TED Talk on gunsmithing, the history of muskets, and the apparent godlike perfection that is the AK-47—well, no surprise there. 

In minutes, Kalashnikov goes from spitting monosyllables at me as if I’m interrupting something important to turning around in his seat. Shit, he’s even gesturing with those long fingers, pulling them through the air like he’s playing it. Like it’s a guitar and he’s singing along.

Good hell, he’s got a nice voice when he’s not being a sarky bastard.

The more he talks, though, the more I’m beginning to see a theme with Kalashnikov. Everything he does is deliberate, methodical; the flicking of a finger, the choice of a word like the loading of a chamber. He’s not sitting there giving me a book-on-tape of a Jane’s guide. He pulls out every fact, strings along every detail, spins it back around and fires it out again—lead and brass transmuted into a bullet. It’s funny. I almost feel like I’m listening to the history of the world told from the barrel of a gun. Civilization as gunpowder, saltpeter, and steel.

And then, the music drifts off. He stares at me, steely eyes a little wide, head cocked. Bemused, maybe? 

Okay, so I drifted off there a bit. Hard not to when someone’s been talking for—I glance at the clock—twenty minutes, give or take, no matter how interesting the topic. But before I can tell him to go on, he opens his mouth again.

“There. See? Dull as mud. You want good conversation, maybe Tinky Winky and you can talk about fucking or dick jokes or whatever it is you regular forces people do.” 

He’s scowling again. Great. What the hell did I do now?

“Hey, now,” I protest, “I didn’t say—”

“No, but you thought it.”

“I didn’t think—” I pinch my nose in a sigh. “ _Pain_ in my _arse_! Look, Kalashnikov. If I want you to stop, I’ll tell you.”

That gets his attention. “Just like that? None of this”—he waves his fingers around—“pissing about where you say you want something when you don’t and then get mad when you get what you said you wanted?”

“No pissing about,” I promise. “Besides—” I shoot him a grin. “I’m the one who threatened you into talking. Why would a normal person do that?  
Kalashnikov snorts. “I don’t think we’re normal people, Colonel. Either of us.”

“Probably not, yeah.” I let the silence ease down between us like a new lover while I pull Freyja back into my lap and mess with her tuning keys. _Tt. Daddy’s gonna need to get you new strings. Yeah, if we can find any._ A man has to do something to keep from losing his mind. Even if he’s shit at it.

“So. Guns,” I prompt.

And just like that, the light’s back on in his eyes. “Kind of funny,” he says as he dangles his fingers between the holes in the steering wheel, his attention back on them. “I don’t think even my dad l—liked them as much as I do. Collected as many. Treated them right. The first time I held one...” He looks at me again, and my fingers stop on the pegs.

I’ve never seen eyes that actually look like steel before. 

“Have you ever just known something, Moore? I don’t mean in your heart or your bones. I mean deeper. Like you knew it all along, that it was just out of reach, until you had a reminder?”

“Not really.”

“Yeah, well, that’s what happens whenever I pick up a gun. I remember who I am.”

“And who might that be?”

“A machine,” he tells me with a long-toothed grin. “A machine for war.” 

The grin is contagious, and I’m doing it right back at him without thinking.

Yep. Fucked in the head, this one. 

And I can’t take my eyes off him—until the clock on the dashboard flips over a number.

“About time to break camp,” I note.

“Mhm. I’ll see to collecting the weapons from the watch.” As he swings open the door, I think I’m going to see a shutter closed, a gate thrown back up. But something’s different now. His movements seem lighter, more acrobatic. Even more stunning.

“Oh,” he says, jerking me out of my thoughts. “And you can go now.”

Huh? “Go where?”

He throws me an eye roll over his right shoulder. 

Oh. “Decided you trust us now, huh?”

He shrugs. “I’ve got a hunch. Don’t ruin it.”

But there’s something playful in those blue eyes. I decide to return it. “Oh, I don’t think I’m ready to listen to Henley whine about riding in the bitch seat again _just_ yet. And besides…” I pat Freyja’s back. “Cab’s more comfortable.”

Kalashnikov shrugs. “Do as you please, then.” 

But I think I hear him humming as he jaunts off to go yell at my men. Hard to tell for sure, but I think it's "Monday Morning."


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Motorcycles are fun!

After Kalashnikov decides he trusts me and won’t take his toys and go home, things quiet down a bit—at least as quiet as they can get for my little band. We have a few skirmishes, raid a few shantytowns for ammo, water, and equipment; nothing we can’t handle.

That’s part of the problem, though. It’s nothing we can’t handle, and my men are used to challenges. Hell, that’s why most of them signed up in the first place. They’re glad to have the supplies, of course, but when things come a bit too easy, they get twitchy, run hot, and start taking it out on each other. So far, it’s only been little tiffs, easily broken up—a few pissy words over who had more than his fair share of water, a few threats to kick someone or other’s arse over a look or a gesture. Nothing I can’t break up or put to rights with a glare or a few barked words. But as days wear on into weeks, voices get louder and my men are a bit slower to stand down. I’m a bit worried guns might come out if we don’t see some real action soon.

Another problem is, I’m getting twitchy too. Action, of course, also means pussy, and out here, it’s about as scarce as water. Once you leave the dying cities, it seems like the only women you find are either too old, too leprous, or too damn crazy to fuck. Most of my men’s junk still works, so I know they’re feeling the same frustration I am. That itch that gets right down into your blood. Twichy, yeah. Hell, I’m surprised more of them haven’t turned to screwing each other. Not that I give two shits so long as it’s not fucking up unit cohesion. And as we all have damn well known since the days of the Spartans, it doesn’t. Hell, the fact the more jittery of them have been taking out their frustrations in each other’s arseholes and mouths is probably the reason I don’t have a full-scale mutiny on my hands. For all I know, these little liaisons might even be the reason we’ve held together so long and so good as a unit. The Spartans, after all, weren’t the best damn war machine in the ancient world just by chance.

But without any decent hot holes, I’m beginning to think of…things I shouldn’t too. Things I haven’t for years. About long, sinewy legs wrapped around me and clever fingers in my hair. A mouth against my ear hissing out insults and disrespect. Tangly black hair, and a hard little butt rubbing against my thighs.

I try not to dwell on it too much. I’ve got enough to do keeping my men from killing each other. And sure enough, two of them try to do just that a few weeks after our last raid—against a half-starved caravan that surrenders the moment we pull up. I’m just getting back from pissing when it happens.

“ _Get away from my truck, Tinkles, or I’ll blow your fuku-damned head off._ ”

“You point that piece at me one more time, you sack of shit, and I’ll shove it so far up your ass, you’ll be shitting lead for the next century!”

I pinch the bridge of my nose with a groan. Of course, it’s the usual suspects. Ever since Kalashnikov joined our operation, he and Deepdog have been at each other’s throats, and they’ve been snapping especially hard at each other this last week. I should’ve known better than to step away from camp after telling the little shit that Deepdog’s going to be driving the armory for a while, but what can I say? Going for what feels like half my lifetime with nothing but my right hand to help me out is making me stupid.

“Break it up, you two!” I snap as I stride around our mobile armory. My armorer and my strategist don’t even look up from their standoff; Kalashnikov has a gun aimed for Deepdog’s head, and Deepdog’s returning the favor. 

Of course they don’t. That would make my life too easy. 

Instead, Kalashnikov inches his trigger finger back just a hair. “Stop pointing my own weapon at me, you son of a—”

Right. That’s enough of that. I storm up and slap their guns out of their hands with a single swing, then backhand them both.

“Goddamn children!” I roar, grabbing them each by an arm and hurling them forward before they can shake off the shock. “Sit the _fuck_ down!”

As soon as they hit the ground on all fours, they both scramble over and down onto their arses—too stunned to mouth off, probably. 

“Moore,” Kalashnikov bleats—okay, I guess not. “You’ve lost your fuku-damned mind if you think I’m going to let him drive my—”

I jerk him up by the arm before he can finish and get right in his face. “Not your truck, Major,” I yell. “When you joined this outfit, you became _our_ armorer, and your armory became _our_ armory! Get that through your goddamn skull, or so help me God, shitting lead will be the least of your worries.”

If I thought my threat was going to shut his mouth, I was sorely mistaken.

“Fine,” Kalashnikov hisses, getting right back in my face, “you go on ahead and do that, _Colonel_. You go right ahead and blow my brains out, and good luck finding a man out here who knows these weapons like I do.”

I squeeze his arm hard enough to bruise it. This little piece of shit. He’s got me by the balls, and he knows it. Yeah, we may not have had too much to fire at lately, but we’ve never had such good guns to shoot with—and they’ve never been so well-serviced. Hell, give the brat a fucked-up, rusted Glock you take off some small-pint warlord and he makes it fire like gold in just a few days.

Even if he pisses me off enough to shoot him, we both know I won’t. 

But that doesn’t mean I’m not gonna teach him a lesson.

“Come on.” I grip his arm even harder and drag him away, leaving Deepdog on the ground staring after us, too stunned to speak. “You,” I tell my strategist, “pick your jaw up and get in the truck. We’re pulling out in twenty. _Not_ a word!” I shout at Kalashnikov before he can speak. “You so much as breathe wrong, and I’m gonna put you over my knee and whip some sense into that flat little arse. I am not gonna put up with your shit today.” 

Surprisingly, the brat closes his mouth…and then I realize what I just said. 

Fuck me.

At least it got him to shut up, I guess. Anyway, I take advantage of him being quiet for five seconds to drag him far enough away from _our_ mobile armory to have a little heart-to-heart—which involves me slamming him up against the side of another one of our trucks and grabbing him by the collar.

“It seems you still have a discipline problem, Major,” I tell him, getting right up close to his horsey face again. “And quite frankly, I’m getting sick and tired of dealing with it. Maybe there’s no military left, but I’m still your superior officer, and from now on, you’re gonna do what you’re told.”

That seems to snap him out of his daze. “Or you’ll do what, exactly?”

“I don’t need you so bad that I won’t tie you up in the back of the armory until it’s time to distribute weapons again.” I shove a finger against his lips before he can open them to bitch at me. “You just try me if you don’t believe me. Deepdog is taking a turn in your truck because we’ve got more than enough motorcycles for everyone now, thanks to the last few raids. So there’s no reason to keep you in there, especially when I need you riding point with me.”

Kalashnikov yanks his head away from my finger. “Why?” he snaps. 

“Because your CO said so. How the fuck did you even become a major with an attitude like that?”

“Because I have more than two brain cells to rub together!” he snaps. “Now why do you want me riding point?”

“Because things have been quiet lately, Kalashnikov. Too quiet. And I don’t like it. If I’m gonna stay at the head of this pack, I want my best two shots flanking me, which means you and Bad Dennis.”

Sure enough, that gets his interest. “Not Tinky-Winky?”

Got him. “He’s not half as good a shot as you. He knows it, you know it, we all know it. Now please stop calling him that. He’s sand-crazy enough as it is without you picking fights. Hell, we all are.”

Actually, what I’ve told him isn’t exactly the truth. Well, more or less, but not fully. Yes, I’m nervous. Things have been too quiet lately, which means either an ambush or that they’re bound to get hairier soon. Call me superstitious, but so far my superstitious arse is still living while my enemies are vulture food. So if we’re riding into danger, I damn well want Kalashnikov to shoot it down before it shoots me. 

What I don’t tell him is that I want him at my side. He’s been spending entirely too much time in that truck lately; he doesn’t talk to anybody else in the company unless he’s passing them a weapon or insulting them. Hell, other than me, they feel neutral to him if they don’t hate his skinny arse. It’s hurting morale. I can’t have that.

And I don’t want him in there. I want him out here. Where I can see him.

I try to ignore the little shiver in my stomach as I glare at Kalashnikov, still pushing him up against the truck, still holding on to his collar. I definitely try not to think about jamming my knee between those skinny legs, grabbing that mop of hair and pulling his head to the side to give me his neck.

Aside from ducking away from my finger, he hasn’t tried to push me off, either.

I try not to think about that too.

“Well, get used to disappointment, Colonel,” he says. “Because I’m not gonna do it.”

I shrug. “All right.” I grab him by the arm and yank him away from the truck and back toward our armory. “Then we’ll do this the hard way. Gonna truss you up behind the ammo boxes and shove a sock in that mouth. No more of your backtalk, no more of your bitching, just nice, peaceful quiet and respect around here.”

“Moore—”

“Uh-uh. It’s time I showed you a little old-fashioned military discipline, Major.”

Not to mention, tying those long limbs up while he squirms and glares, then pushing him down on the floor so he can wriggle and growl and—

God damn, I need a woman. 

“Moore—fuk-ushima, listen for a damn second!”

His tone makes me stop and look back at him. I’ve never heard him sound like that before. Nervous. Embarrassed. Self-conscious, even. And that look on his face. All twitching lips and nervous glances down to the dust on his boots. Furtive blue eyes. 

Scared? 

“Kalashnikov. Look at me.”

He doesn’t. Of course not. Not letting go of his arm, I grip his stubbly chin and turn his head up to me. God, the look on that face. His eyes are so dark and big, and suddenly I wonder if he’s really twenty-five and a major or if he’s been pulling my leg the entire time.

“What’s wrong?” I ask, gentler now. 

Kalashnikov sighs as his lids flutter down. He won’t look at me.

“I can’t do it because I don’t know how, goddamn it!”

Okay. “I don’t….” And then it hits me. “You don’t know how to ride a bike?”

“Say it a little louder. Pretty sure Tinkles didn’t hear it back in the truck.”

“Stop calling him—really?”

“Yeah. Rub it in.”

“But you were in Special Forces!”

“It wasn’t my division!” he yells back with unnecessary force.

“Like hell it wasn’t.” 

“I don’t like them!” he fires back. “They’re loud—”

“You _shoot guns_!” I say, incredulously.

“It’s not the same thing!” he roars. 

He’s stopped trying to pull away, though, so I tilt his head back up to me and lock it there by taking it with both hands now. “What happened?”

He sighs again, and those lashes flutter with shame. God, how have I never noticed how long they are? 

“There was an accident,” he murmurs, almost too quiet to hear. “I was already nervous. You know. The noise and—and just the feel, you know? Nothing surrounding you but open air. Just a tangle of metal and rubber underneath keeping you from scraping the road. I’d had a few lessons, but it just…wasn’t enough, you know? But they said I was ready, and you follow orders. Well, sometimes the goddamn captain should stop running his mouth and listen.”

“You wiped out, huh?”

He nods, swallowing. “Took a turn too fast and flew off. Scared the shit out of me. I thought…” He swallows again, keeps blinking. 

“Shh,” I tell him.

He shakes his head. “Clipped the windscreen on my way over. Flew about, um, twenty feet maybe before I landed. Thought I’d broken my neck and that was it. I was finished. Dead or paralyzed for the rest of my life. Turns out it was just my leg and my collarbone. Busted both up real good.” He chuckles; it’s a hollow sound. “Hey, thank God for youth and fast healing, huh? Still was out for the rest of the year. Probably coulda been on my way to making lieutenant colonel if it hadn’t—I—I don’t—”

“Shh,” I tell him again, running a hand through that messy hair.

He sighs. Like he’s heavier and older than he is now. “Just…please. Don’t make me do this, okay? I’ll do anything else, Moore. Even stop giving Deepdog shit—”

I chuckle. “You’ll never do that, and we both know it. Him too.”

“I’m serious.” He fixes me with those dark blue eyes now. “Please,” he says again.

Fuck, I hate it when men cry. And I get the feeling he’s about to do that. I move my hands on down to his shoulders and step in close; so close we’re almost touching. “I can’t do that, K,” I tell him. K? Where the hell did that come from? “Trucks are necessary, yeah, but bikes are faster. Easier for a fast getaway, for maneuvering in skirmishes. If you want to be part of this company, you gotta ride.”

He shakes his head. 

“Dammit, I’m not gonna let you turn tail and go back to that prison.” I step back, still keeping my hands on his shoulders. It seems to have calmed him down, I tell myself, so might as well not move them. “And I’m not gonna make you jump on one and fang it, either.”

“Fang it?” He frowns.

I flash him a grin. “Not so old now, huh?”

He rolls his eyes, but there’s a ghost of a smile on his lips. “Yes, you are. You just made that up.” 

“Yeah, okay, guilty. Point is, I’m not going to make you just jump on. You’re out of practice, and that’s a recipe for disaster right there.”

His shoulders relax a bit under my hold. “But…?” he asks warily.

“ _But_ ,” I say, “that doesn’t get you off the hook. You’re gonna ride along behind me—”

“No.”

“What _is_ it with you and that word?”

“I’m not going to be the laughingstock of this outfit just because you think—”

“If anyone laughs, fuck ’em. You’ve my permission to shoot at will.”

This gets me an incredulous blink. “You’re fucking serious. Even if it’s Tinkles?”

I give up. Let them hate each other for the rest of their sad-sack lives “Mmh. Think of it as an early birthday gift. You’re gonna ride along behind me, and I’m gonna teach you everything I do. Then, when you feel ready—”

“I won’t.”

“When you feel ready, we’re gonna switch places.”

“Bullshit.” He snorts. “You’re gonna ride bitch with me?”

“Why not? You’ll have been my bitch for a while, so everyone’ll know where we stand.” Okay. So that came out entirely wrong. But he doesn’t seem to care, so I press on. “That way, I can help make adjustments. Grab you if you, I don’t know, take a turn too fast. Which you won’t, by the way,” I add when he winces. “You learned why that was a mistake, and next time, you’ll know better. So…” I step back, giving his cheek a pat before moving my arms back to my sides. “Still want me to tie you up in the armory?”

“I wish you would.”

What? Oh. Right. “Not liking that attitude, Major.”

He sighs, runs his hands over each other. I notice they’re shaking a bit. “Okay,” he says at last. “Fine. But only because I know you. You’ll ride my arse until I say otherwise.”

“Damn right, brat. Now go and get your rations. We’re leaving in a few.”

“No thanks.”

“Okay, then. C’mon,” I say, draping an arm around his shoulders and leading him along. “It’ll be fun.”

“You’ve got a fucked-up idea of fun,” he bitches. But he follows me, shoulders square and hard enough to break a board across.

“Hey.” I pull him a bit closer, rub my hand up and down his arm. “I’m your CO, brat. I’m not gonna let anything happen to you.”

“Hnh,” he snorts. But his shoulders do go down some as we walk around the truck to where we’ve parked the bikes.

“This’ll be easy,” I reassure him. Only, part of it won’t be. In a few minutes, I’m gonna be shooting through the sands with that scrawny back pressed against me, those hands around my waist. Legs up against mine.

And that part won’t be easy at all.


End file.
